San Antonio Spurs’ Patty Mills had surgery in the offseason to repair a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder. And while many might think the injury flared up in the postseason, Mills actually had been dealing with it since the beginning of the Spurs 2013-14 regular season.

Patty admits it is not a common basketball injury, but did say he didn’t think much of the injury when it started to surface.

Via Australian radio Sportsentral 116:

“I tore my rotator cuff and it tore apparently right off the bone.”

“It was a thing that had been bothering me for quite some time and then it came back at the beginning of the season. And didn’t know what it was. Didn’t know how bad it was and just tried to play through it.”

“I didn’t really realize until after the season when I had an MRI that this was pretty serious and now I’m looking at six to seven months out.”

Mills won’t be back on the court for the Spurs until the midpoint of the upcoming NBA season but talk about playing through pain.

Here Mills tore his rotator cuff right off his bone. That had to be painful but the casual fan probably didn’t suspect otherwise.

Mills averaged 10 points, 1.8 assists, 2.1 rebounds, shot 42 percent from the 3-point line, and 46 percent from the field in 18.9 minutes per game with San Antonio. In the postseason, he averaged 7.3 points and shot 40 percent from the 3-point line and 44 percent from the field.